We made it to the last stop of the first part of our trip. Irkuck. Man, is it raining here. A way worse than in Novosibirsk. We left the train – it’s raining. We went to check the tickets’ availability and other odds and ends, and when we were done, it was coming down even harder. What a disaster.
I guess they must be having some issues with the sewerage system in this city, because we’re knee deep in puddles. Some of them are like 20 meters wide. And by the crossings we have to be 2-3 meters away from the curb, because the water from under the car wheels would splash that far.

Once we arrive, we head out to the railway station to take care of the rest of the trip – our transportation to Mongolia. Now that she’s finished her 15-minute-long chat with her colleague, the lady selling tickets is finally up for helping us with some information. There’s only one train a day to Ulaanbaatar. It leaves at 10:00 p.m. and costs merely RUB 4500, which would be slightly more than $100. We go with the cheaper option then – three separate tickets, three separate rides. First from Irkutsk to Naushki (at the Russian-Mongolian border). This route is local, so the cost is local – RUB 1300. Then the second ride goes from Naushki to Sukhbaatar (just through the border) – RUB 300. The last ride is from Sukhbaatar to Ulaanbaatar, but those tickets we should be getting in Mongolia only. All that should save us around 1/3 of the cost. Unfortunately, tickets for the second ride, the one across the border, can be purchased only a day before the departure. We have designated a few days to hang out around Baikal Lake, so we are getting tickets only for the first train and we will be back at this railway station in a few days. We cross our fingers that the other tickets are available then.
We keep going with our question: Circum-Baikal railway. The ticket lady says that we need to go down, to this other desk. So we go. The other desk tells us to go to yet another desk. So we go. But this yet another desk is…closed. It was open only till 1:00 p.m. – it’s Saturday today. Welcome to Russia, have we forgotten where we are?!
We don’t have any more time to waste. I am just getting this sense that we can forget about the Circum-Baikal ride and starting to get used to it…
We decide to try Olkhon – we need to get to the Baikal Lake.

Right outside of the railway station, at a marshrutka stop, we are kindly informed by a very polite one-toothed local, that we would not move out of the city from this particular place in any other way than with the train. Railway station is in the middle of nowhere, there’s nothing around here and we should go to avtovokzal (bus station, if you don’t know Russian). So off we go to the avtovokzal.
But how to do that? Let me just remind you that it’s raining cats and dogs. By feet is too hardcore with the weather, cabs are too expensive.
We take a tram. We figure that way we’ll hide from the rain and be able to see Irkutsk a bit, through the windows.
Yeah, right, we saw a lot!

Of course, the tram’s rout wasn’t going anywhere near the bus station, but that wasn’t going to stop us. After all, what’s a 15min walk through a flooded city for two toughies like us. At least we finally see the city!
While singing in the rain, we jumped over the puddles, ran away from splashing cars and before we knew it, we hit the counter desk at the bus station. And what then? Nothing. No buses to Olkhon for today. Apparently, there were some that had left in the morning but now we have to wait ‘till tomorrow. Are we screwed? Absolutely not!
Fortunately, the Russia wouldn’t be the Russia without the infamies initiative of the locals. After all, we still have marshrutkas – the main means of Russian transportation!
I go outside and within a minute or two, I’m standing by one of those minibuses, buying last two remaining tickets to Khuzhir from the driver, who could not look at more Buryatian. Everything went smoothly but I admit, I was quite lucky. It was the last marshrutka to the island for the day.

The weather was a bit concerning, too. If we had to spend our entire time in Siberia in such conditions, it’d be lame. While leaving Irkutsk, windshield of our car looked like in the picture above but luckily, with each kilometer we were getting fewer and fewer raindrops. Eventually the windshield wipers stopped for good.

And that’s when my jaw hit the floor with a thump. The view was simply astonishing. That openness. The colors. Those mountains. The forests. All I could do was put some music on and drift away. I love the feeling of such moments: I’m travelling, there’s music in my ears, eye-pleasing vistas to look at and I find myself in that state when you are just before you fall asleep. If I rememeber corecty, it’s called the“theta phase”. By that I mean the phase when you think about everything and nothing, thoughts are trivial and significant at the same time, everything gets organized in your head, your mind is sharp and clear, etc., etc. I’m sure you’ve all been there and know exactly what I’m talking about.

Unfortunately, the ride was so bumpy that there are no pics from it, except for the ones taken at a gas station stop.

Besides, I don’t think it’s possible to convey this feeling with a simple photo, because it’s multi-dimensional, like audio/ visual and whatever else.

Speaking of gas stations, that was the beginning of our big struggle we had to deal with over the next few days – the bathrooms.
At this gas station, toilets were somewhere outside. And they didn’t look too bad.

The reality was a bit more down-to-earth.

By the shape of the hole I figured it most likely was the men’s room.

Come to think of it, this kind of solution makes sense in dead winter – everything freezes and problem’s solved. But how to “go” when it’s this cold?
We had a similar issue in Olkhon, once we got to our accommodation. I suspect there’s no sewerage system on the island. Everybody takes care of their own water supply and builds private sewerages for their households. We were lucky to have a real toilet (I mean the “throne”) at our place, still, it was an out-house. I was pretty sure there were no inside toilets around the property, not even for the owners. It was something new for us – shitting in nearly 0 degrees makes it an experience! We had to make it work this way or another. What else can you do, right?

I’ll write more about our stay here in another post

At the end I’m going to brag that we lucked out and got a room with complimentary guards. First,they got inspected the place and then, till the very end of our stay, they would sit by our double door, leaving us only for a short potty break. From time to time they would also come up with an excuse to get into our rooms to make sure everything was ok.

Unfortunately, it looks like I’m catching a cold. Probably after getting soaking wet in Nowosybirsk. I did take some anti-flu specimens with me so I’m drugging myself up. The Siberian aura is not helping so cross your fingers for me!